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"What if your partner in bed loves to have some grade of eroticism verging to De Sade practices. Would you abhor her/he? Think she/he is ill? Take her to the psychiatric ward? See her/he as worrying bestial or inclined to dictatorship?" Having just rejoined the list after a break, it's really comforting to log on and find some uncluttered rhetoric. I don't know who asked these questions originally but I think my answer would probably be Yes and to my partner Close the door on your way out. I do not believe that there are grades of eroticism [strange concept - how do you grade or measure desire] which have mutual and consensual love and sex at one end and the exercise and reception of naked, fascistic power relations at the other. Quite simply, there are practices [horrid term] which are to do with love and sex and those which are not. Whoever asked these questions should be questioning instead why we now have the continuum model of sexual desire implied in the questions and doing something to resist it. [And, btw, I don't accept the 'in the privacy of own home' argument because people do all sorts of abusive things to each other in the privacy of the home and we have laws against a lot of them.] Living inside change as we all do, it can be pretty hard to observe it, but nonetheless why is it that, for example, S&M along with all sorts of other rubbish like body piercing and tattoos have recently become more mainstream? cheers David %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%